September CET!

[Stratos Ferric]

With sub-14C for Manley now pretty likely, I had a look back through this thread and it seems to me to provide salient warnings about the dangers of 1. being too assertive in LRFing and 2. trying to guess what will happen more than a week away. I'll add a third more debatable point down below.

I'm not going to paste in comments here, afterall I've been staggeringly inaccurate this past 'summer'. But the fact that Manley is about to come in below 14C when this was widely derided (even described as nonsense, little or no chance, absolute dross etc.) ought to caution us in future.

The third point I want to add is to caution those who assume GW will be the main warm driver in a given month. Sometimes you'll come a cropper. I did in winter 2005/6 and another warm protagonist has come a cropper this month if you look at the comments made by that person through this thread. Regardless of whether you believe the world is getting warmer and driving the CET ever upwards, failing to see the synoptic possibilities for much cooler interludes is a trap that it's only too easy to fall into.

A good learning month for us all!

I think, not unusually, there's some not inconsiderable distortion going on there WiB. I'm sure you don't intend it, but that post comes across as the worst kind of sanctimonious preaching: you're like a 60 a day smoker turning up at the pub and suddenly coming on all health conscious. Fair enough, your points are correct re the dangers of LRF - therefore what say we ban all comments in the CET thread after the first of the month until, say, the 15th? And let's dispense with any discussions re forthcoming seasons.

I certainly doubted we'd get sub 14: the only think that I think I dismissed out of hand, however, was the sub par month: and we haven't gone sub par.

Fair play to you for backing the outcome from early on, but please, there are people on the forum better placed than you to be gloating.

Nobody argues that there is not scope for cooler interludes.

[TEITS]

The third point I want to add is to caution those who assume GW will be the main warm driver in a given month. Sometimes you'll come a cropper.

A good learning month for us all!

Just want to say well done mate on sticking to your guns because you have certainly been right.

You also make a very valid point about GW and this I believe is why some have called the CET incorrectly. I hope SF doesn't mind me saying this but recently his CET predictions have been way off the mark as I seem to remember him calling an above average month for July & August.

Now naturally we are bound to see below average months even during GW due to the variablity of our climate. What makes this current period rather interesting is in recent times September has often been a rather warm month with last years Sep CET being 16.8C!. Now considering the below average temps for the summer there aren't many who would of predicted this and I bet some people would of said impossible!.

[Stratos Ferric]

...Thirdly, I wasn't having a go at SF solely, there are several people who have stated 15C+ is the likely outcome, indeed even you yourself were running around getting all excited about September being the hottest month of 2007 a couple of days ago. ...

Apologies WiB. I see now that you were merely playing back the lesson that you have learned yourself this month.

...You also make a very valid point about GW and this I believe is why some have called the CET incorrectly. I hope SF doesn't mind me saying this but recently his CET predictions have been way off the mark as I seem to remember him calling an above average month for July & August.

...

They have indeed, though like most people I have good guesses and less good ones.

As it says in "If" ... and treat those two imposters just the same...

Edited September 30, 2007 by Stratos Ferric

[West is Best]

Manley finished on 13.85C

Not sure which way Philip will round that but definitely below 14C.

http://www.climate-uk.com/graphs/0709.htm

[Optimus Prime]

Manley finished on 13.85C

Now it all boils down to whether Hadley will be as low. Haldey does generally run slightly lower then Manley, apart from the odd exception. Last September Manley was 0.2c below Hadley and so equalled the record rather then breaking it.

My guess is that it'll certainly be lower then 14.0c once they've fiddled about with it. I suspect around 13.7c-13.9c at the highest and lowest.

[Kentish Man]

Manley finished on 13.85C

Not sure which way Philip will round that but definitely below 14C.

http://www.climate-uk.com/graphs/0709.htm

It has been rounded up to 13.9C.

[BLAST FROM THE PAST]

It has been rounded up to 13.9C.

Oh drat....I'm bang on

BFTP

[Stratos Ferric]

Manley finished on 13.85C

Not sure which way Philip will round that but definitely below 14C.

http://www.climate-uk.com/graphs/0709.htm

Indeed, and definitely above the mean, though it got a lot closer than I expected.

Edited October 1, 2007 by Stratos Ferric

[Stratos Ferric]

Here's the month end plot, reitterating the point I made previously that, for once, GFS projected pretty well from a long way out. There was some uncertainty re the month end, hence in the early projection a big range of outcomes, reflecting the potential for HP to anchor either E, or W, of the UK. In the end the latter prevailed allowing more polar flow, but by mid month the model had picked this up and the final projection nailed the synoptics well. There was some fluctuation in detail, largely due to what cloud was where and when, so some nights / days came in slightly above expectations, others slightly below, particularly Sat-Sun night.

[Duncan McAlister]

Hadley finishes on 13.8C

http://hadobs.metoffice.com/hadcet/cetml1659on.dat

[Optimus Prime]

At the end of the day West Is Best nailed it on the head. Probably the most accurate CET prediction to date. Certainly came in a lot lower then the rest of us epected.

13.8c is the final figure. Just 0.1c above average! And 3.0c below last years figure.

[snowsure]

Just to play devil's advocate, I would also say that we would expect 30 years of warming within a millennia of cooling in just the same way that a cool month would be expected within a warming year!

However, looking back through the first few pages of this thread again (ain't hindsight brill!) I would say that a "normal" month should not be so suprising but, for some, it is. If I found £1 today and £1 tomorrow, would I find £1 on the third day? On balance, I do not amass money through finding it so I assume that, over the year, I will lose as much as I find.

Just the same with cooling for some (or warming for others.)

[Stratos Ferric]

At the end of the day West Is Best nailed it on the head. Probably the most accurate CET prediction to date. Certainly came in a lot lower then the rest of us epected.

13.8c is the final figure. Just 0.1c above average! And 3.0c below last years figure.

Am I missing something: wasn't his forecast 15.4? As is often the case, those who actually nailed it (if it's 13.8, then Rollo, Tribe 3000) are the least vocal.

Edited October 1, 2007 by Stratos Ferric

[North-Easterly Blast]

Well Hadley have confirmed as 13.8*C for the September 2007 CET. Certainly not what you would call a cool September, but one comfort is that it bucked the trend of recent years a bit. Philip Eden points out that it was the fourth most northerly September in 135 years of records, and yet it still ended up a shade above average for the CET, so post 1997 Stage 2 GW UK is well and truly still with us IMO. Sep 2007 should have had, given the synoptics, a far lower CET than it actually had. Logic would have suggested that it should have been a proper cool September at least like 1993 (12.4) or even 1986 (11.3), but yet again it wasn't and failed to produce the negative anomalies in the CET that it ought to have done. August 2007, despite having frequent northerly winds and being the third or fourth most northerly on record should have been cooler than it actually was, like the 14.6 in 1993 or possibly cooler still, but it wasn't.

Anyone thinking or saying that the last three months are a break in the post 1997 GW UK is deluding themselves when the synoptics of Aug and Sep 2007 should have produced much cooler CETs than they actually did, so it still seems in this issue that it looks almost impossible that we will ever get a winter like 1995-96 let alone a truly severe one.

[West is Best]

Wow that's amazing re. Hadley and despite the northerly component we must not forget that that's a synoptic analysis - the first 1/3rd of the month was VERY hot so the northerly component really did the trick and certainly matched everything we would have expected in the past from such a set-up. Indeed, coldest second half for at least 15 years.

At 13.8C that's actually average. 0.1C is officially within the statistical margin of error.

13.8C pretty much stuffs a record warm year.

Stratos - I think OP's point was just that about 1 week into the month I could at least see what was coming and then stuck to my guns with us going sub-14C, despite your own derision both statistically and synoptically. Am I blowing my trumpet? After the most useless forecasting imaginable this summer ... hardly!

Edited October 1, 2007 by West is Best

[summer blizzard]

We will however be using Manley for the purposes of the CET competition, so i am quite pleased, being only 0.6C out..

[Anti-Mild]

Congrats to Rollo and Tribe3000 for getting their prediction bang on 13.8c. Honourable mentions to Memories of 63, Snow-Man2006, Norrance, Snowyowl9, Sundog, DamianSlaw, BFTP, Dancc, Steve B, Phil n.warks, and ME (!!) for getting within 0.2c.

Is the comp not running this month? I need to crawl up that leaderboard!!

[The Eagle]

The Irish met office said today that this September was the coldest for 13 years at most weather stations. Im pretty chuffed with that Strangely it was also very sunny. Good signal for winter IMO if we see below average Autumn months coupled with what looks like cold pooling well ahead of schedule compared to last year in the polar regions.

Edited October 1, 2007 by Darkman

[sundog]

Congrats to Rollo and Tribe3000 for getting their prediction bang on 13.8c. Honourable mentions to Memories of 63, Snow-Man2006, Norrance, Snowyowl9, Sundog, DamianSlaw, BFTP, Dancc, Steve B, Phil n.warks, and ME (!!) for getting within 0.2c.

Is the comp not running this month? I need to crawl up that leaderboard!!

The second time in 4 months i was only 0.1 out, i was 0.1 out in june also. Im sure i will get it sooner or later

[Joneseye]

We use the Manley for the comp though, which came in at 13.9 didn't it?

http://www.climate-uk.com/

[SP1986]

The synoptics this year have been very typical of deep polar air in the past - however, although below average temperatures have occurred at times it has certainly not been as cold as it could have been, which suggests that warming is still showing its hand, generally!

[TEITS]

Im rather pleased with my punt (see pg2) because not only was I close 14.1, I actually described the month fairly accurately synoptically speaking and this was on the 23rd of August

[The PIT]

Damn 0.2C of and called September correctly on my website. Average to slightly above average temps below average rainfall. Rare I get it right mind you.

[West is Best]

By the way, I'm pretty sure Philip Eden has argued somewhere (on here actually I think) that anything within 0.2C is average. Don't shoot me - I'm only saying what he once said, and if you want to call it above average I'm not going to fight. Just glad that at long long last we've had an autumnal September with sub-14C.

Welcome back Autumn: my long lost friend!

[Don]

At the end of the day West Is Best nailed it on the head. Probably the most accurate CET prediction to date. Certainly came in a lot lower then the rest of us epected.

13.8c is the final figure. Just 0.1c above average! And 3.0c below last years figure.

Certainly much improved over last September! Thankfully it's now highly unlikely that this year will be another record breaker, although it will still be a very warm one.